CSU Students Earn National Media Awards

A team of three CSU students won first place in the Short Form Documentary category in the annual Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts, and Rocky Mountain Student Media publications brought home numerous national national honors in the spring of 2012.

Karen Du, Emily Luft and Kyle Rasmussen’s video Awake beat out entries from around the country. The CSU team of Daniela Castillo, Jeff Colebank, Justin Switzer and Adam Walsh received honorable mention for their video, Level Up – A Film About Gamers and the Games They Play

Meanwhile, The Rocky Mountain Collegian and College Avenue Magazine online editions earned top honors from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Both the Collegian and College Avenue earned a Gold Crown awards, and the designation of “All-Columbian Honors” -the best of the best for concept and presentation. These 2012 awards came after the Collegian was named one of the top three student newspapers in the country in 2011 by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Both the Collegian and College Avenue also earned awards of distinction for traditional print editions from Columbia Scholastic Press, which focuses primarily on publications, while the Broadcast Education Association is focused on television and radio.

Each year the BEA’s Festival of Media Arts attracts more than 1,000 entries from students and faculty around the country. All winners will be recognized at an April 15 awards dinner in Las Vegas.

The videos were produced as part of a CSU documentary class. Most of the students have taken classes in television and reporting, and many have worked at CSU-TV.

Video explores caffeine addiction

Awake explores our society’s dependence on caffeine. Luft, an admitted caffeine “addict” thought it would be interesting to explore the topic through the eyes of college students.

“I have noticed that the college culture is built around caffeine,” she said. “Unlike our parents, we drink it in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, so we thought it would make an interesting topic.

“The big thing for us was that we wanted to make the story interactive. That’s what really made the video.”

Students voluntarily give up caffeine

Du, Luft and Rasmussen used Facebook to recruit five CSU students to volunteer to give up caffeine for a month and document their journey. The students had varying degrees of success, with most admitting that they were addicted to caffeine.

In addition to the first place

CSU has strong history of success at in the BEA competition. In addition to several individual video awards, CSU-TV has won several honors for best newscast and KCSU-FM DJ’s have been named the nation’s best several times in recent years.

Students also have a strong history of success with the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2012, SPJ named the Collegian the Best All-Around Daily Student Newspaper in the Rocky Mountain Region. Additional regional awards are listed here.